


The Name’s McGueira

by Bumblesnom



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: First Meetings, Gueira is a disaster, M/M, McDonald’s au, McGueira, Meet-Cute, Minor Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos, Very brief mention of vomit, Weed mention, i know I’m not funny I tried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24062695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bumblesnom/pseuds/Bumblesnom
Summary: It was a normal day for Gueira at his job until a tall, handsome man strolled in through those automatic doors.
Relationships: Gueira/Meis (Promare)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 47





	The Name’s McGueira

**Author's Note:**

> This is 100% inspired by the actually funny McGueira au started by @roseleaf on Twitter. A few chaotic discord conversations later and this happened.

It was a normal working day for Gueira. That morning he’d clocked in, sleepily greeted his coworkers and got to work the same way he had for years. Today he was on the early shift, set to start at an agonising 6am which meant rolling out of bed at 5:50am for Gueira, followed by ten minutes of complete self-loathing as he sped towards work. Sure, it was better than being on the late shift and having to deal with drunk customers vomiting up cheeseburgers and vodka but hey, let a guy complain about his service job. 

Work was work. Nothing particularly exceptional but not particularly terrible either, if anything he and his coworkers spent plenty of time fucking around in the kitchen out of earreach of the customers. They’d all be slapped in the face with a disciplinary if anyone overheard them planning to ‘use burger wrappers to roll a fat blunt’ and wailing ‘too spicy’ when they added salt to anything. 

They didn’t discuss what happened in the freezers.

So, when a customer who looked like they’d hopped straight out of Gueira’s fantasies strolled in through those stupidly loud automatic doors Gueira was caught completely off guard. His long, sleek dark hair wafted angelically in the air conditioning and even the awful LED lighting looked flattering on him. Vaguely, Gueira wondered if he could pull off the smell of grease and burger juice too. God knows Gueira couldn’t. 

There was another man with him and Gueira prayed to whatever powers that be that they were just two bros going for McDonald’s together instead of two boyfriends looking to split a cheeseburger. It had happened before… Gueira could neither confirm nor deny that he’d purposefully given them cold fries as a result. Just because he had some form of power behind that counter didn’t mean he actually used it.

Well, most of the time at least. Sometimes you just gotta let out your ‘hot boy isn’t available’ frustrations. The ice cream machine  _ was _ broken too, just because it was fixed ten minutes prior didn’t change the fact that it had, at some point, stopped working.

Anyway, focus. The short, blond man who had entered with the walking epitome of perfection was yet to show any signs of affection towards him. His hopes wavered slightly as they approached the same touch screen to place their order but he knew logically that it didn’t prove anything. Friends did this all the time, hell, Gueira did it all the time. It’s fine, the stranger could still be single. Sharing an order screen  _ wasn’t  _ romantic.

Conveniently, Gueira forgot the fact that any confirmation that he wasn’t dating  _ this _ man didn’t mean he was single.

It didn’t matter anyway as a sharp nudge to his shoulder suddenly made him very aware of the loud blaring oven timers that never seemed to shut up for the entire 24 hours the place was open. Shit, he had a job he was supposed to be doing. As much as he wished he was paid to gape at hot men all day, he was actually employed to serve them and forget them. He wasn’t even on counter duty, he was supposed to be collecting orders for the window…

Pulling himself together, Gueira quickly finished packing up the current order he was working on and handed it over to his coworker at the window who only smiled knowingly at him. They’d been working there since the day Gueira had started and luckily for him he knew they’d never rat him out for daydreaming when he was supposed to be working. Even better, they seemed to be rooting for him when it came to his love life that was even drier than their chicken. Though, like anyone else, they seemed to hold little faith that he was going to meet his soulmate behind a counter at McDonald’s. 

But what could he say, he was a dreamer.

His McDonald’s meet cute would happen, he had to stay positive. He just had to keep an eye on the handsome long haired man and hope for the best. 

Maybe it was the delirium and the fact that he was running purely on coffee and the baja blast one of his coworkers had snuck in but for some reason Gueira couldn’t stop checking on the pair. Usually he wasn’t so nosy, as much as he liked to pine over the odd customer he didn’t usually resort to sleuthing in order to deduce whether they were single or not. This one however, had him hanging as close to the counter as he could in an attempt to overhear their ‘waiting for our order’ conversation. 

“Who the fuck orders salad, do they even sell that?” He overheard the man ask, disgust clear in his voice.

Ah… so he was a man with taste. 

“I don’t know, Galo said something about trying new things… I’m just glad he didn’t make me order him a happy meal again, he never gets rid of the toys so we have a collection of them on our bookshelf,” the blonde sighed, though his voice was dripping with fondness.

Well they didn’t live together. In fact, the one wearing the frills seemed to live with some other guy. Score one for detective Gueira.

“I’m just saying, Lio, no amount of love for someone could make me order a salad in McDonald’s.”

Aha! So this Lio guy  _ loved _ that Galo guy. Things were looking good for the not-dating case. Damn, he was good at this whole deduction thing.

Who knew you could learn so much by eavesdropping on conversations instead of doing your job?

“Order 42,” the person who was  _ supposed _ to be working to counter shouted. Instantly, the pair looked up and after checking their receipt started to walk towards the counter.

Shit they were headed his way. He wasn’t about to let this golden opportunity slip through his hands so he wrenched the tray of food from his coworker’s hands and tripped his way over to the correct end of the counter. The two men looked startled at his clumsy approach but Gueira wasn’t going to let that deter him. 

Just play it cool, he had this.

“Ahaha… here you go.” He didn’t hand the food over.

“This is yours, I uh… hope you enjoy it!”  _ What was he doing? _ “Some good shit we sell here,”  _ shut up _ , “...uh sorry, shouldn’t have said that.” 

Why did he even try?

Though the shorter man was clearly trying his hardest to hold back his laughter, the other simply looked confused and uncomfortable. C’mon Gueira, one last shot. Say something charming.

“Heh... the name’s Gueira…?” 

Idiot. He was an actual idiot. The stars on his badge were idiot stars for being the ultimate idiot at his job, which was being an idiot. 

“Thanks, Gueira,” the blond, Lio?, chuckled and took the tray from his clenched hands. “C’mon Meis, Galo will pout if he’s left alone much longer.” 

“Sure,” Meis hummed, his blue eyes locking with Gueira’s and even that was enough to send his jaw smacking to the floor. Everything felt like it was going in slow motion, like a scene in one of those rom-coms where the screen goes all sparkly as the two main characters stare wistfully at each other. Only, in reality Gueira was pretty sure he was drooling on the counter and if he wanted to avoid a health code violation he needed to stop.

Sighing longingly, he watched as they walked away and sat at a booth that was out of his line of sight.  _ Damnit _ . He supposed the floors hadn’t been cleaned in an hour or so and they  _ did  _ have a couple of new ketchup spills and loose grains of salt. If he happened to pass by their booth as he did that, well, that would just be a coincidence.

He was ready to mop… for love!

* * *

Miraculously, the floors weren’t too filthy. If this was a normal cleaning duty, Gueira would be celebrating but this was anything but that. No, instead the sudden respect customers had for the floor was severely depriving Gueira of the ability to ditch his work at the window and innocently admire the beautiful man who was laughing joyously with his friends. The pair he’d arrived with were practically sitting on each other so at least he could rule out the whole ‘dating’ question for good. Not that it mattered, he was just going to spend an hour dreaming of the handsome man and then respectfully let him leave and go back to wailing about his love life to his coworkers. 

They were right, he wasn’t going to get his McDonald’s meet cute.

Dejected, Gueira resigned himself to the counter with the condiments. He’d already cleaned it up twice since he started his faux cleaning spree, deciding that suddenly it would be beneficial to the customer experience if the ketchup packets were lined up neatly. Maybe they’d see him doing such a good job and call corporate and then he’d finally get promoted to manager. Then his idiot stars would be proof of how good he was at being a manager… who was still an idiot part-time.

Carefully, he snuck another peek over his shoulder at the booth that the target of his current affections was sitting. Food wrappers laid empty on the tray as did their drink cups. The blonde went to pick up the tray which was quickly snatched out of his hands by his boyfriend who seemed to be declaring some sort of hero speech about taking the tray for him. So long as Meis, as they had called him, didn’t walk over here he would be fine. 

Surely if they were disposing of their tray they were about to leave and finally Gueira would be able to move on. Damn he was gonna need a freezer break after this. Too much tension was bad for the burgers.

The blue haired man made quick work of dumping their waste in the bin and storing their tray, Gueira nodding politely in acknowledgement and appreciation. Then, just as quick as he had arrived he was walking back over to the booth and grabbing his boyfriend’s hand. 

Okay, Gueira, time to say goodbye.

Yet, as he discreetly observed the couple leaving, something very quickly dawned on him.

Meis wasn’t leaving with them.

He watched as Meis waved goodbye to his friends, his breath hitching when the man then turned around to face him. Holding direct eye contact, he started to walk over to where Gueira was pretending to organise the paper straws. Oh god, he was about to get beaten up for being a loser with a crush. He just hoped he’d at least have the decency to do this in the parking lot instead.

“When does your shift end?” He asked, instead of punching him in the face.

“Huh? Oh, I get off at two,” Gueira replied, startled. He didn’t even process why he was asking, maybe he wanted to beat him up but had respect for his contracted hours. At least he’d still be getting paid, how much did a broken nose cost… $10,000? 

Could he DIY his treatment instead?

“I could hang around a bit longer and maybe we could do something when you’re done?” Meis asked sheepishly. He didn’t look like he was challenging him to a fight, instead he looked nervous and his eyes flitted around so that he was looking anywhere but into his eyes. Wait… was he being asked on a date?

There was only one place he wanted to go with him.

“McDonald’s?!” He yelled, his enthusiasm causing Meis to flinch.

“... you wanna go to McDonald’s… after your shift at McDonald’s,” confused, Meis scowled at him but not without a hint of amusement. 

“I get hungry! Can’t a guy crave the food he’s spent eight hours watching  _ other  _ people eat.” It was true after all, there were only so many times you could give people a McDouble without pining after one yourself. Hell, sometimes Gueira liked to pretend they were ‘out of ingredients’ if he was particularly fed up with having to resist temptation for certain menu items.

“Y’know most people usually want to be as far away from their job as possible when their shift ends. Instead you want to  _ become _ your job,” Meis chuckled, the sound angelic to Gueira’s pining ears. 

“If you do what you love, you never work a day in your life or whatever those white moms on Facebook say,” Gueira laughed, awkwardly. 

“... I’m beginning to think this was a mistake.” Jokingly, Meis pretended to start walking away, stepping backwards and somehow managing to avoid the kid that ran behind him. Damn, was there anything he couldn’t do without looking cool?

If that was how he wanted to play it, there was only one thing Gueira had to offer.

“You’ll get discounted McDonald’s.”

“See you at two.”

**Author's Note:**

> I regret writing this.
> 
> I’m hoping that through this I can finally stop crying over the fact that McDonald’s is closed and let Gueira and Meis go back to their chaotic ex-burnish lives. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed Gueira being a disaster for the handsome customer who in turn falls head over heels for the blushing mess doing a terrible job at hiding the fact that he’s staring. 
> 
> Yep, I delayed writing barely catching our breath for this. I hope it was worth it!


End file.
